Tradition and Consciousness

This chapter examines two interwar movements that link Theosophy and Western Sufism: the Traditionalism of René Guénon, and the teaching of George Gurdjieff. Although Guénon publicly rejected both Theosophy and emanationism, he was still influenced by both, as well as by perennialism and anti-exotericism on the model of John Toland. The Gurdjieff teaching owes less than is thought to Sufism and much more than is though to Peter Ouspensky and, through him, to the psychology of William James. Ouspensky and Gurdjieff were early promoters of the transformation of emanationism from its original focus on the soul and the One to a focus on consciousness and the expansion of consciousness. To this end they used novel practices, including asceticism and “discomfiture.” The chapter also introduces the two men who would later apply Traditionalism and the Gurdjieff teaching to Western Sufism: Frithjof Schuon, and John G. Bennett .